Background:
Statistics show that 18 – 34 year olds are the group of people who often do not finish treatment or do not think it is relevant. Treatment response has not developed at the speed that recreational drugs have diversified. We considered various approaches that might provide effective harm reduction responses to younger people using drugs. They would often experience harm, sometimes severe for example ketamine-induced cystitis. Others may have been convicted of drug offences.

Objectives:
At Cranstoun we challenged ourselves to provide responses that this cohort would engage with in order to reduce risk and harm.

Methods:
We trialled a project to reach these people utilising social media they already use. The platform we developed was ‘Harmreduction_al’ on TikTok. Our aim was to engage users of the app in meaningful harm reduction conversations.

Results:
Within 2 months we achieved 1 million views and has since risen to over 12 million. We believe this is evidence that younger substance users have an appetite for risk reduction despite rarely presenting for treatment. 90% of our view count is in the 18 to 34-year-old age group. An unexpected positive consequence of providing this has been engagement from people across the globe for example Australia, USA and Scandinavia.

Implications:
We have shown that providing harm reduction information on TikTok is an effective way to engage with people who use substances who do not engage with more the formal drug treatment system. It may be possible to replicate this success across other social media platforms.